The Shattered Window
by agentfoxmulder
Summary: An inability to forget combines with an unwillingness to move on that keeps Lyra from living her life and plagues Will horrifying nightmares. Brought together by destiny, bound by fate, and torn apart by reality- is there anything that can be done to shatter the windows of the worlds between them?
1. Endless Days

Far too often, people take the little joys in life for granted, as if they feel they somehow _deserve_ to be greeted by a shining sun when they pull back the window shades, or are _entitled_ to hear birds singing merry tunes as they stroll through the park. They forget that these things are not guaranteed, that there is only joy to be found in them because there is joy in their own hearts.

But for Lyra Belacqua, the sun's shine had long ceased to matter, and the sounds of twittering birds fell on deaf ears. Her only joy in life came from pouring over endless books that held the answers to reading the Alethiometer. Though that was not truly a joy- it was a bittersweet thing, half loved because it was teaching her to read her beautiful Alethiometer once more, and half hated because she now had to work at what once came as natural to her as breathing.

She tried desperately to enjoy the life that she lead now- she had finished her schooling, top of her class in certain subjects, middle of the pack in others, and was now back at Jordan College, living in a neat little home the Master had had built for her as soon as she expressed her desire to return. It was a quaint little thing, designed for just one person to live cozily, located at the edge of the floral gardens, far enough from the College itself that Lyra could find the solitude she so desperately craved these days. Pantalaimon was the only one she really talked to anymore, especially since the Master had died several months ago, shortly after presenting her with her cottage, a thought that made her mouth twist and tears prick at the corners of her eyes, which she would hastily wipe away before anyone could see.

She'd thought she could live a fulfilling life, having had dreams of travelling, visiting Serafina Pekkala and Iorek Byrnison, spending time on the water with the Gyptians she had grown to love, perhaps studying the Aurora as her father had, or simply visiting all regions of her world and learning all there was to learn, Alethiometer in tow. And she'd done some of it, to be sure- she'd gone to visit Serafina, who'd in turn taken her to see her beloved Iorek who'd grown so old, and she kept regular contact with the Gyptians, especially Ma Costa and John Faa, and Farder Coram up until his death. But those visits fell like a lifetime ago, and her contact with the Gyptians had waned in recent years, on her end. She missed Farder Coram fiercely- he'd been working hard to help her with the Alethiometer, and she had loved him deeply.

But she could not force herself to fuel the fire of her adventurous spirit any longer. She had simply lost the will to explore, to learn, to discover. She didn't want to be around people, she didn't want to socialize or to see new places. It was if her world had suddenly lost all its color and energy, turned a dull grey with muted voices and muffled sounds. It had been a long time coming, and though she had fought it in the beginning, that strength had been drained from her along with everything else. She had grown weak, something she'd never dreamed possible. She had always been such an independent creature, bold and daring, with lies ready at the tip of her tongue to assure that she'd get her way. But now she felt like she had nothing to fight for, no goal now that the world was saved and she righted the wrongs she'd done to Roger. She was just drifting about, an empty shell- she needed purpose again.

The only cure for her was Will. The one thing she could not have.

Until she'd realized her heart had belonged to him, at the tender age of 12, she hadn't known she could hurt this way. It was if a piece of her was _missing_ , it felt much like the time she'd been forced to leave Pantalaimon behind when she went into the world of the dead. And she knew her daemon felt it too.

She knew they could not go on living this way- something had to change. And today would be that day.

"I'm going to get to you Will. Me an' Pan. We will. I promise. And you know I keep my promises." Her voice comes out as barely a whisper as she sits on the bench that mimicked the one in his world, staring at the space she imagined he was sitting in, at this very moment. Pan was curled around her shoulders, little claws digging into the skin over her collarbone. "We en't been working hard enough at is all, right Pan? It's not impossible, it can't be. We should have been searching for a way back since the day we left him in his world. We shouldn't have gone to school- we wasted four years there, Pan. Four years. And a year since then. Five years, gone. D' you think he's given up on us, Pan? Or d' you think he's trying as hard as he can to get to us too? Maybe Mary's been helping him, maybe she's come up with some sort of science, right, and it's just taking a long time since she doesn't really know how Dust works still, or how worlds work. Or maybe Will's trying to rebuild the knife, maybe he don't care about the Specters anymore." The worlds tumble out of her uncontrollably, and she takes a big sniffle, blinking a few times to keep herself from crying. "We will get to them, Lyra. Will and Kirjava, we will see them again, we have to." Pan licks her cheek comfortingly, nuzzling his face into her curls, giving her as much reassurance as he can. "Going to school was right. We learned a lot of stuff we didn't know before. And Dame Hannah helped us get those books we needed for the Alethiometer. We needed to go. And now we need to find a way to Will and Kirjava, all that stuff we learned prepared us for that, without it, we wouldn't stand a chance." And with that he jumps off her shoulders, landing soundlessly onto the grass and scurrying up the nearest tree, peering down at her from between the leaves, making her smile for what felt like the first time since she'd left Will.


	2. Bloody Nightmares

Rain falls in a steady pit-patter against the window, the sky a twisted swirl of grey and white, with patches of watery sunlight here and there, the sun desperately trying to show her face, but to no avail. A young man tosses and turns on a bed, muttering and clawing at his chest, limbs tangled up hopelessly in blankets and sheets.

And then, with a gasp that's more of a strangled scream, Will jolts upright, ripping himself free of his sheets and jumping to his feet. Spots of blood dot his white t-shirt, which is stuck to his chest with sweat. Kirjava mews anxiously, winding her body around his ankles and peering up at him with an expression far too serious for a cat. "Did you have that dream again?" She asks, blinking slowly at him, watching as he stares at his reflection in the mirror with too-wide eyes. "Yeah." He answers, swallowing hard, blinking rapidly to clear his head of the flashes of the nightmare.

 _His heart beating painfully, cracking his ribs. His mutilated hand bleeding freely while the fingers of his good hand claw viciously at his chest, peeling back the flesh to expose a bloody, throbbing heart bursting through his broken ribcage._

His damaged hand throbs painfully and he glances down at it, relieved to see that the stumps of his two fingers are covered by scar tissue, not blood.

 _But the pain vanishes suddenly, leaving him with an ache far worse. His gaze travels down to see that his heart is gone, ribs curled outward like clawed and broken fingers. His eyes rise to see Lyra, holding his heart, the blood seeping through her fingers, thick and dark. She smiles at him, but then her eyes grow wide. His name is on her lips, but before she can utter it, her image wavers and then shatters into a million, sparkling pieces, like bits of diamond, a single, white feather left in her place._

"5 years Kirjava. _5 years._ And I have woken up nearly every day since then from nightmares like this." He bangs his fist on the dresser, causing the mirror to shake. "There is meaning to these dreams. These feelings I have, they're not normal. I have to find her. We have to find them." He amends himself at the end, meeting the steady gaze of his shadow-colored daemon.

"We have to break the window."

The words come out with a firm assurance that he hadn't felt in years, a slight pressure easing in his chest as though some great weight had been lifted. Kirjava peers up at him, blinking slowly before leaping lightly onto the dresser, head-butting his forearm affectionately. "We do." She answers simply, sitting down and watching him carefully as he retreats and pulls his shirt up over his head, discarding it to the floor. "They're worse." She mews softly, looking at his chest. Deep, raw fingernail marks scour his flesh, little rivulets of blood caked against his pale skin, mingled with sticky sweat. "I'll survive." Will mutters, examining the scratches in the mirror with a serious frown on his face, before shrugging and stretching, wincing a little as the movement tugs at the wounds.

Without another word, he gathers up some clean clothes and pokes his head out of his room, glancing both ways before darting to the bathroom- the last thing he needed was for Mary or his mother to see the blood and question him- it was bad enough when his screams would wake them. He was just fortunate that they believed him when he said they were only simple nightmares, nothing of concern, though he could see in Mary's eyes that she had lingering suspicions, but he refused to acknowledge them.

With cat-like grace, he darts to the bathroom and slips inside, locking the door behind him. He takes a longer shower than normal, steam filling up the tiny bathroom, water hot enough to scald his skin. But he needs it- he never seems to be able to get warm these days, not even in summertime. There's always a chill that lingers in his skin, seeming to stem from his chest, which he just can't seem to shake. But the water helps, at least a little, even if it leaves his skin pink and sensitive and the scratches sorer than before- though they were now much cleaner.

It doesn't take him long to dress and head back to his room, where he carefully stashes his bloody shirt at the bottom of his hamper, knowing his mom wouldn't sort through it, respecting his privacy. "It's almost time." He glances at his daemon, who nods, understanding, and he holds his arm out to her, letting her crawl up it, draping herself around his neck and shoulders. With a last glance around his room, Will departs, checking his watch briefly. He makes his way soundlessly to the kitchen, not wanting to wake his mother, and hoping that Mary had already left for work.

Mercifully, he makes it out of the house undetected, and manages to get to the- their- bench without incident, heaving a sigh of relief to find it empty- it was not a spot he would be content to share with anyone, except _her_. More than once, he'd found it occupied, but all it had taken to scare them off was a hard glare-most were reluctant to hold his dark, angry gaze, and though he wasn't tall, he was nonetheless intimidating, standing there with arms folded across his broad chest, scowl in place. But there is no need for that today, and he sits on the bench with a sigh, Kirjava hopping off his shoulders to lay on the bench beside him, eyes half closed contentedly. "I know you can't hear me Lyra, but I just want you to know that, well, that we're going to come find you and Pan. I know we agreed to live our lives, but…" He trails off, blinking hard. "But I just can't do it. Not without you. Not without my heart." The words are strangely poetic, at least for him, but they feel right, and he sighs, leaning back against the bench, lost in thought about the fierce little girl who'd captured his heart, wondering what she looked like now, and hoping her scowl was just the same.


	3. Neither, Nor

Lyra doesn't know how long she sits there, knees drawn up to her chest, side of her cheek pressed against the grainy wood, eyes taking on the sort of glazed-over look of someone lost in thought. Pan is stretched flat on his back, little paws splayed out in all directions, beady eyes half-closed, nose twitching. The sun is beginning to sink below the horizon, a warm, orange-red glow beginning to fill the sky, turning the clouds a hazy pink, but Lyra doesn't seem to notice. She contemplates staying here all night, in a sort of silent vigil, an apology to Will and herself for not beginning her search sooner.

She feared no danger, even out in the open.

But Pan comes to his senses, rolling over onto his belly and climbing up her bare leg, little claws gently scratching at her skin as he gazes up at her imploringly. "We should head back, Lyra." He tells her, nudging her knee with his nose. Lyra blinks, tucking a strand of dark blonde hair behind her ear, seeming to have been drawn out of some deep spell. "Yeah. Yeah we should." She agrees, and Pan scurries up her body to sit on her shoulder, wrapping himself around her neck and peeking out from the curtain of her hair, as he had so often done when he'd been able to turn into a mouse.

With stiff movements from sitting so long, Lyra gets off the bench, stretching and yawning, covering her mouth with her hand to stifle the sound. "I think, Pan, that we should contact Serafina. She might be able to help us, maybe point us in the right direction. She's got to know _something_ about travelling between worlds, being a witch and all. And maybe, right, she didn't tell us everything she knew because it wasn't _time_ for us to travel, to find Will and Kirjava. But she's _got_ to tell us now, or at least help us. Yeah." She seems to reassure herself as she walks along, not seeming to realize or care that her feet were not bringing her home, but instead into the town itself.

She walks aimlessly through the familiar cobblestone streets, largely quiet except for the occasional street urchin darting past, dirty and barefoot and looking like they were having the time of their young life. Oh how she missed for those simple days of running amok with her band of ragamuffins, Roger at her side, Pan changing from shape to shape more rapidly than the eye could follow. "Pan, what d'you think would've happened if Roger never got snatched? D'you think we still woulda done everything we did? Would Roger have maybe died another way?" She muses, stopping beside one of the shop stands, remembering how she used to steal pies and contemplated stealing a horse- but only for a bit, of course, just enough time to do a few laps around the town before returning it, never wanting the label of horse thief.

Pan doesn't answer her, suddenly going stiff on her shoulder, little claws digging into the fabric of her shirt. She's confused for a moment, but then she _sees_ it, or maybe feels it, because her eyes don't seem to register an image exactly, only a sense that something _should_ be there, and that strange sense draws her eyes to a shadowy corner, where nothing looks out of the ordinary.

"Pan, what is, what is…" She searches for the right words, but nothing comes to her, and she ends up waving a hand vaguely in that direction. "I don't know." He answers tersely, nose twitching as though he were trying to smell something out of the ordinary. Just then, a dirty street boy comes darting by, and Lyra reaches out, quick as a flash, to grab him by the arm. He protests, squirming and practically growling, until Lyra loosens her grip enough for him to snatch his arm back, glaring at her accusingly.

"Listen, d'you see anything strange over there? Anything?" She points to the corner, bending down to look the kid right in the eyes, biting her lip a little. Reflexively the boy turns to look in the direction she points, cocking his head slightly to the side. He shrugs his bony shoulders and meets her gaze almost defiantly. "No. I dunno. Maybe." He looks her up and down, taking note of her nice clothes, squinting at her. "Here." Lyra knows these types too well- it wasn't that long ago that she was one of them" and fishes around in the pouch of the belt she wore, pulling out a coin and pressing it into his dirty palm. The boy peers at it carefully before curling a fist around in and rocking back on his heels, seeming to think hard. "I don't don't know how to 'splain it right, but my daemon, Flit, says she feels like she's seein' somethin'. Like there's somethin' there, or not there, I dunno, she can describe it better. You tell 'em Flit." A little mouse crawls out of his shirt then, turning into a large wolfhound nearly as tall as the boy himself, as if to intimidate these strangers. "It feels like my eyes are drawn there, all the time. Like there's something I _should_ see, but I dunno, I don't. It makes me tremble, and the animals here avoid it. Though I dunno if the adults notice it, you're the only one I've heard mention it." And then with that, the pair dart off, Flit turning into a bird to guide her boy down a maze of alleyways, the near-darkness swallowing them up.

"Lyra, let's go back." Pan says quickly, tugging on her hair as Lyra takes a step towards the space, then another. "Please, Lyra, let's go back. We need the alethiometer! We can ask it what this is." And it is these words that stop Lyra in her tracks. "You're right. But Pan, why can I sense it like the kids and daemons do? And why only just now? It en't the first time we've been here." A hitch of nervousness enters her voice, but there is a hardness in her gaze that says she's already begun to steel herself for another adventure, and a shiver of excitement courses through her.


	4. Something Familiar

Will doesn't know how long he lies on the bench, hands folded behind his head, feet hanging off just a little from the edge. Kirjava prowls around the grass nearby, betraying the restlessness Will felt despite his motionless exterior. The sun sinks steadily lower, threatening to dip behind the tree line at any moment, the sky a rich orange, streaked with bloody red and pink-tinged clouds, more vibrant than he could recall in recent memory.

It seems that the farther the day slips away into a fast-approaching night, the heavier the air grows around them. It's not an unpleasant feeling, exactly, but it's certainly different, as though the air were charged with some kind of electricity, prickling along his bare arms and settling all around him, weighing him down just a little.

"Do you feel that, Kirjava?" Will asks, voice breaking the strangely cloying silence, turning to look at his daemon who pauses in her prowling to fix him with a piercing stare. "Yes. It feels familiar to me, though I can't explain why." She adds, twitching an ear, and Will jerks his head in a nod, agreeing. Impulsively, he reaches his good hand out, fingers moving carefully as though searching for something, sifting through the heavy air.

Nothing.

He lets his hand fall in defeat, brow furrowed, though he can't explain his sudden frustration. What had he been searching for anyway? Or expecting?

With a sigh that's more of a groan, he shifts into a sitting position, stretching his arms high above his head, blinking a little before standing, stomping his feet as though to help restore full circulation. "Come on, let's get home. It's practically dark now and you know how Mum worries. Hopefully Mary keeps her calm."

He shoves his hands deep into his pockets as he strolls the familiar path home, darkness beginning to settle around him like a shroud, resting on his shoulders and taking the place of the shadow that had followed him in daylight. Instead of taking the normal route home, staying straight on one of the main roads, he opts to turn down a side street, though he doesn't really know why. It isn't the first time he's taken this alternate route- he often did when the weather was nicer, trying to prolong his time outside, but he'd never travelled this way at night. Kirjava slinks behind him, eyes glowing faintly like little lamplights in the growing darkness, fur prickling along her spine faintly.

The pressing, electric feeling grows stronger the further Will travels down the darkened road, night almost settled fully around him, and again he finds himself reaching his hand orward, fingers grasping for something he can't identify, and coming up with nothing. Krjava is clearly uneasy, her inky fur bristling as she quickens her strides to catch up to Will, brushing against his ankle, head singing from side to side as though expecting to see something out of the ordinary.

But there is nothing. They make it home without incident, greeted by his mother and Mary and a hot dinner.

And it isn't until much later, when he's lying in his bed, staring up at the celing, that he realizes what it was he had been feeling, what his fingers had been seaking.

The edges of a window. A window between worlds.


	5. Real and Not Real

By the time Lyra makes it back to her cottage, a pure darkness has settled down for the night, darker than she can ever recall- but she isn't sure if it's her imagination, or some feeling of trepidation, that makes it seem as such, or if it's reality. She supposes it doesn't matter, for what was reality, truly, when you'd experienced as much as she had in her short life?

With a soft sigh, she begins to gather up the books needed to read her Alethiometer, the familiar bitterness crawling up her throat and settling on her tongue like bile, making her scrunch her face and swallow thickly. Oh, how she _hated_ having to read her precious Alethiometer this way, and her heart ached for the ease and grace with which she had once read it. If only she could go back to the days of her youth, days of a changing Pan and muddy feet and sweet fruits shared with the only boy- now a man- she would ever love.

She would give anything to back in the world of the Mulefa with Will by her side and the clarity that came with reading her alethiometer.

Something feels different as she sets her books down and picks up the heavy wooden box that contains her Alethiometer, but she can't figure out exactly what it is. She feels oddly compelled to walk away from her books, to sit in silence with nothing but Pan and her truth-reader, but what would that accomplish? The grace that had once allowed her to read it was no longer with her, it had vanished with the innocence of childhood the day she had given herself completely to Will.

Or had it?

With a sudden spark in her eye that hadn't been there since the day she left the world of the Mulefa, Lyra opened up the box and lifted up the heavy, golden truth-reader, and walked away from her books. "Lyra?" Pan queries, almost nervously, beady eyes bright with surprise and suspicion as he follows her to the hearth by the crackling fire. "Shh, Pan." She hushes him as she settles on the floor cross-legged, Alethiometer cradled carefully in her hands on her lap. The needle quivers almost anxiously, twitching between the Owl and the Baby, even though she hadn't framed a question yet. "Somethin' is different, Pan. I can feel it." She whispers, not taking her eyes away from her Alethiometer, cheeks flushed, teeth worrying at her bottom lip.

With half closed eyes, Lyra tries to frame a question in her mind, trying to recall that feeling of climbing down a ladder that had helped her find the answers she sought so many years ago. "Just like putting one foot down below the other, you can do this, you can feel it." She mutters to herself, voice barely above the whisper, not quite loud enough to be heard over the crackling fire. "Start simple." She says, a little louder, but the words taste wrong coming out of her mouth and she shakes her head, closing her eyes briefly as she inhales. "No. I'm going to ask about Will."

She says, loudly and clearly, biting her lip so hard she tastes copper, hands trembling a little as she begins to move the hands of the Alethiometer, trying to slip into the trance-like state she once had.

She's nearly there, she can feel it, and she lets out a deep sigh, letting her eyes wander, unfocused, over the face of the Alethiometer, trying not to think, but instead to feel. To feel for the next rung of the ladder, those deeper meanings…

And she can't do it. She lets out a cry of frustration, resting the Alethiometer on her lap to cover her face with her hands, body trembling as she tries to fight back tears. Pan watches her in silence, draped across the back of her shoulders, whiskers twitching.

"Recall how that spot in the alley made you feel, Lyra. The something that's both there and not there, tangible and intangible."

Lyra drops her hands from her face, sniffing loudly to regain her composure, narrowing her eyes in determination as she sweeps her dark blonde curls back behind her ears. "There, and not there. The edge of real, and not real." She mumbles, picking up the Alethiometer, which seems to vibrate just a little, as if in excitement.

As if it were ready to speak to someone who could understand it once more.


End file.
